Making BRW’s Rich Bosses list is enough to fill any executive or company founder with a sense of achievement.

But the real heroes of the 2013 list haven’t just made themselves rich – they’ve boosted their shareholders’ wealth too.

Paul Kehoe, the chief executive of Syrah Resources, is one of those heroes. The junior miner’s share price has leapt 370 per cent in past 12 months, taking the value of his personal stock to $66.3 million.

Investing in a company where a founder or manager has a controlling stake can be a recipe for disaster if the founder takes a “my way or the highway" attitude. Poor corporate governance, overblown salaries and myriad related-party transactions are problems often associated with founder-controlled companies.

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But there are advantages to investing in companies where the founder and management have significant skin in the game: research suggests that in companies with high price-earnings ratios (typically growth stocks), a large number of shares in the hands of insiders means better share price performance.